Uttarakhand vigilance department arrests IAS officer in disproportionate assets case

|HT|

The Uttarakhand vigilance department on Thursday arrested IAS officer Ram Vilas Yadav, additional secretary in the Uttarakhand government, in a disproportionate assets case. Yadav had appeared for questioning in the vigilance department on Wednesday afternoon and was later arrested the same night.

“In our preliminary investigation, we found that he has disproportionate assets of over 522%. As this is very high, we sought permission from the government to start an investigation. When we got permission in April this year, we raided his properties in Dehradun, Lucknow and Ghazipur, during which we found several documents and evidence regarding corruption by Yadav”, Amit Sinha, director, Vigilance Uttarakhand said. “There were many documents on which he couldn’t answer. So, we arrested him at 2:15am on Wednesday night. Today in the afternoon he will be produced before the court”, he said. Sinha added that Yadav’s six bank accounts will be frozen.

“His properties are already being investigated. As his wife owns many properties, we are also looking into that. She was also summoned on Wednesday but she didn’t appear for questioning”, he said.

On Wednesday evening, the state government suspended Yadav for not cooperating in the investigation started by the state vigilance department.

On Tuesday, Uttarakhand high court had sought a response from the state government by June 23 on a criminal writ petition filed by Yadav seeking a stay on his arrest in the disproportionate assets case and quashing of FIR against him.

The HC also directed Yadav to cooperate in the investigation and appear before the vigilance department on Wednesday with all documents and give his statement. State vigilance department had filed an FIR against Yadav in the disproportionate assets case earlier in April this year. Based on the complaint of one Lucknow-based person, the Uttarakhand government started an investigation against him and the Vigilance department team raided his locations in Lucknow, Dehradun and Ghazipur earlier this month.

Four years ago, Yadav was serving in Uttar Pradesh government and returned to Uttarakhand in 2019.

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